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Friday, July 22, 2011

+/- on Google+

As a very satisfied Facebook user, I had reluctance to hop onto the Google+ train. Figuring it wouldn't hurt, I accepted the invitations sent to me by a few of my friends. Well, after a week of being on it, here's what I've found to be good as well as frustrating.

I know it's still in its testing phase. I get that. So far, the design is fantastic and I've found it very easy to navigate. But here's where things get a little bumpy.

One of the big draws of Facebook and Twitter was how friends who fled (or were never on) MySpace were on those sites. It's fun to connect to more people in one spot, for sure.

Maybe I'm to blame on this one, but all of my 90 friends on Google+ are also friends of mine on Facebook. I follow a couple of people I also follow on Twitter and more often than not, it's a lot of stuff I've already seen on their Twitter pages.

I like the idea of Sparks. I made all kinds of Sparks on my page, covering interests from Stephen King to vegan desserts. As nice as it is to have a Google RSS feed with a social network, I get turned off when I see a written version of the game Telephone.

In the case of my Stephen King Spark, I got to see a trail that first (accurately) reported how the TV/film adaptation of The Dark Tower had been halted after Universal backed out. Not too long after this announcement, other sites were claiming the whole adaptation had been killed (which is not true).

Knowing the nature of media where you don't want to be the last one to cover something, I'm gonna pass on reading my Sparks section until I can up with different, broader ideas.

Understand I'm not giving up on Google+. I merely find it very redundant in the face to Facebook.

1 comment:

I tried to make a go of it on Orkut (that long forgotten social networking stie Google started years ago), but it's most popular with people in Brazil and India, so my friend suggestions were very odd (to me, at least). Google + is something I do enjoy. And yes, while most of my friends on G+ are the same as on Facebook, it just seems like the vibe is a bit different. One of the things I really like is Circles. Sure Facebook has Groups, but it's not as easy to add or subtract people from groups on an status update as it is on G+